The Price Of A Memory
by Marauder-In-Disguise
Summary: There's only one thing in the world that the Doctor really wants...


**A/N – OK. This is a bit different to my usual fare, I know, but it's been bugging me for a while and I needed to get it down. It contains character death, be warned, but certainly not in the usual sense of the phrase…Thanks to the ever wonderful sophiedoodle for the read through and the thumbs up!**

**Disclaimer – Paramount owns Voyager, even though I like it better than they do, and the Counting Crows and Shakespeare own their own words! I just put them in a bowl and grabbed a mixing spoon.**

'_And the price of a memory is the memory of the sorrow it brings…'  
Mrs Potter's Lullaby  
Counting Crows_

It's something that has been talked about but I do not think that many before me have ever really had to think about it in quite as much frightening detail. After all, no one lives forever. As a great genius once said, it's the circle of life. Everyone is born and everyone dies.

Except me.

Because I could live forever. I could live for as long as life on this planet, and after it if there is still intelligent life elsewhere. I could technically live for as long as there is life in this place that we know as the universe, and then maybe beyond that if there is something we don't know about. I could live for so long that no one would even remember why I existed in the first place. I could live long enough to become famous, a legend, a myth and then some more. Can you imagine anything worse? The Q like to pretend that they have a monopoly on immortality, but I'm here too and I can see what it's done to them. They're cynical, spiteful and, I think, just sad. They've seen everything there is to see a billion times and they're going to see it a whole lot more. There is no end for them, no conclusion, no fond words of farewell.

And that could be me.

I don't want it to be me. I was recently asked what my dearest wish is, beyond anything else that I have ever wanted or hoped to achieve. I looked her straight in the eye and I told her that I wanted to die. Miral didn't even blink. She took my hand and she rubbed my fingers gently, as she always does, and told me that if that is what I wanted, she would find an answer for me. First though, she asked me to write about what I had asked her to do for me. She thought it was important that people know why. At first I wasn't sure – why should I share my private suffering with strangers? But then I realised that this is something, for the foreseeable future at least, that almost no one can experience, except for me. They've experienced my other novels, my articles, my essays, so why won't they try this one and gain an insight into the true meaning of immortality? The loneliness that immortality can bring. I have people that I care about now, and I know that they care about me, but everyone has their time and everyone dies, knowing that their friends and contemporaries who shared the great experience of life have died with them.

Mister Neelix was the first to go, which came as a horrible surprise to us all. None of us realised that the Talaxian lifespan was anything less than what a human would consider normal, but the day we received a message from young Brax, via the new communications array with the Delta Quadrant, to tell us that his father had passed away peacefully in his sleep, I did some research and discovered that Neelix was lucky to live to sixty. None of us had seen Neelix for a long time, since the day we left him on the colony, but I knew that we'd all spoken to him as often as the array would allow. He never mentioned anything about being ill or infirm and I suppose he didn't want to taint the conversation with the sometimes over powering atmosphere that comes when two people know that they could easily be having their last conversation. It was so like him to think of others before himself.

After Neelix's death, I noticed a pronounced change in the way that the old Voyager crew acted. We'd lost people before obviously, from young Hogan to Kes to Joe Carey and beyond, but those were different. Those were losses that, although we never wanted to endure, we also had to anticipate. Neelix died naturally, after a long and full Talaxian life, and it scared the hell out of them. Suddenly, the crew of Voyager - though they had split and scattered across the stars, they always called themselves the Voyager crew - were vulnerable to an enemy that even they and their legendary resolve couldn't defeat.

Nature. And she proved a most formidable foe.

"I hope Neelix found his Great Forest," Chakotay murmured at the end of the private memorial service that we held for the Talaxian. No one missed the look that he had on his face – whilst not one for extended periods of melancholy, the one thing I could say for Commander Chakotay was that he certainly knew how to make you think. Mortality, something that we had no need to consider for such a long time, had reared its ugly head once more.

After that, things became as normal as they could do given the circumstances. Many of the crew remained close, and we would hold annual gatherings for all those who could possibly get themselves to San Francisco. Tom Paris took great delight in organising these 'get-togethers-, as he was so fond of calling them, and amongst the admiralty, Voyager reunions were infamous, not least because of the increasingly interesting reasons serving crewmen came up with to get there and celebrate. It was during those reunions that we saw the youngest members of the crew; Icheb, Naomi, Miral and the countless others who came after them develop and grow into wonderful young adults. It was because of them that the parties never grew dull – there was so much life ebbing in the room that it was easy to forget that the original crew members had slowed a little. So it came as perhaps the worst shock of all when Icheb – young, brilliant Icheb, the oldest son of Voyager– was the next member of the crew to leave us.

I will never forget the day when Admiral Janeway appeared on the view screen, her face crumpling even as she spoke, to tell me that Lieutenant Icheb, of the _USS Darwin_, was one of three crew members missing, presumed dead in the Beta Quadrant after friendly fire went horribly wrong. Friendly fire – an oxymoron at best, downright ridiculous in truth. He lost his young and infinitely promising life because a so called ally fired on his shuttlecraft as he led a team to investigate the aftereffects of an earthquake on the planet below. They were going with an offer of help from their captain, and they were shot at and killed. What made it infinitely worse was that Naomi Wildman was serving on that ship too and had only been prevented from going on that mission with Icheb because she was called to a medical emergency just as they were boarding the craft. We could have lost them both, just like that. If I believed in a god, I suppose at that moment I would have thanked him, but as I stood at Icheb's private memorial service and watched Naomi sob into her mother's arms, I was left with the vague feeling that I should really be cursing.

After that, something that I don't believe Seven, or Naomi or, indeed, most of the crew ever really got over, there was nothing for a long, long time – fifteen years or so. It was a good time in many ways, because although there was a notable absence from the reunions, the relative peace that the Federation was enjoying meant that our youngsters still serving – Captain Kim, Lieutenant Gerron, Commander Vorik, Lieutenant Wildman, Ensign Torres and many more – were mostly exploring and mapping rather than engaging in battle. Our older crew meanwhile were enjoying the relative ease that came with middle age and beyond and although Admirals Janeway and Tuvok, Professors Chakotay, Paris and Hanson - and the many others who had decided that active service was no longer an option - were working hard, they were not stressed like they had ever been on _Voyager_. I should know – the majority of them still chose to see me as their physician and apart from their worrying, collective tendency to try and duck out of appointments, they were in better health than they had been for a long time. Even Admiral Janeway, who was still so addicted to caffeine that I had to start giving her monthly shots to counteract the effect of it on her liver and kidneys.

The next loss was a far more personal one for me; Lewis Zimmerman, the man who had designed me in his image and who was the closest thing I had to a father, died from the disease that I had fought so hard to cure way back in the days of Voyager. It was always going to happen; even in this day and age there is only so much we can do for someone, but it was still a shock. Seven of Nine and Mister Paris attended his funeral with me, one standing either side in silent support as I listened to Reg Barclay, who himself was beginning to ail at that time, stutter bravely through the eulogy that Lewis insist he read. Mister Paris did not understand my creator's motives, murmuring to Seven that it was cruel of him to make Reg suffer through such a public spectacle but I kept quiet because I understood. Lewis may have been rude and abrupt but he was never cruel, and he was always striving, in his own, misunderstood, way to make Reg more confident in himself and his abilities. I felt proud of Lewis then and even as I think back now, that pride is my abiding memory of him. His heart may have been buried deeply but it was certainly there, maybe even more than he himself knew.

And so, as I may have made clear, it was Reg Barclay who was the next to go. The vast majority of the _Voyager_ crew attended his funeral; how could they not, after all the efforts he had put into bringing us home from the Delta Quadrant? Admiral Janeway had called him an honorary crew member and he never forgot it, I know, because he would occasionally bring it up when we were speaking together. He'd been invited, without fail, to every reunion we ever held and his pride in what he had managed to achieve against such insurmountable odds was the only thing that I think he ever felt he'd done that was worth anything. We all tried to tell him differently, of course we did, but that was Reg – humble to the last. He never accepted a promotion beyond that of lieutenant – commander, but I think he was happy with that. He knew he'd never be able to lead people in the way that a commander needed to and it was testament to his character that he accepted instruction from people far younger than himself in the latter days of his life. People hadn't really cried at Neelix's memorial, because they were numbed by distance; they'd cried at Icheb's, because it was a loss of one of our children and such a shock; at Reg's, people smiled through their tears, because they knew that he had died happier than he had been for the majority of his life. Admiral Janeway was stood with the elderly, retired Captain Picard at the front of the group, and although the two of them shed a tear at the loss of such a gentle and giving friend, they were found at the wake laughing together over something amusing Reg had said just before he passed away. As far as funerals can be places for celebration of life, Reg Barclay's was and I knew he'd just love having his friends gathered in one place together. I miss him, and his simplicity of spirit, a lot.

That was 2400, twenty two years after Voyager returned from the Delta Quadrant. Some of the crew were slowing down a bit by then - most races may routinely live until they are over the age of a hundred, and in the case of Vulcans two hundred – but it was inevitable that my friends and family would have to address the issue of old age. Tuvok was 136 by then, the oldest _Voyager_ crew member, and some of the humans – Glenn Lloyd, Ken Dalby, Jim Chan – were pushing eighty or eighty five, although Glenn refused to listen to my advice that he slow up on the rock climbing. I discovered that old age makes people who are already fairly stubborn practically unbearable. They feel that they have earned the right to behave as they want, to do things in exactly their own way, and young people feel that they have to let the elders do it. Well, I didn't, but as soon as I began to look younger than many of them, they treated me as such. It never got as out of hand as being called 'son' or 'young man', but you can understand what I mean. It is perturbing to watch the decay of time and feel as though you are standing still.

And so time went by, year after year after year after year. We attended weddings, we attended christenings, and we attended funerals. It seemed to me that for every joyful occasion that we celebrated, we paid with sadness and tears. Thirty two friends died between 2400 and 2446. And then there were deaths of others; spouses whom we had all come to know and like, parents of the younger crewmen who had wrung our hands when we first met and thanked us for looking after their babies. We did not go to every single memorial, every single party, but when the jungle drums were beating, no one was left out of the loop. For her part, Admiral Janeway attended every single event that she possibly could; _Voyager_ was her last ship, her last command, her last crew and she never forgot it. Of course, Chakotay would be there too. He never let her go alone, even if he had a hard time getting time off from the Academy to stand by her side and hold her hand. It was good to know that he was there for her on Earth, just as he had been on _Voyager_. From the moment he told her that he loved her, in the middle of one of the early receptions following our return, they had rarely been truly apart. Once, when she had to go on a deep space delegation to the Beta Quadrant, she was gone for seven months. I had never seen him so restless, so out of sorts, than when she was part of that mission. He spent no time at their home beyond what he needed to do in order to live; he was more likely to be found at the Paris-Torres household, with Michael Ayala, working late in his office. In many ways, Chakotay was a rational man, if a little hot headed, but the admiral seemed to do something to him that was beyond his control. I mentioned it once to Mister Paris; Tom raised his eyebrow in that infuriating way of his and just said, "He loves her Doc. You know what that means." I knew of course; I didn't need Mister Paris to tell me. It just interested me, that's all. I had a lot of time to think about people and their quirks.

Maybe too much time.

You may wonder why I pointed to 2446 as a specific year in my tale. Well, that is the year that I first noticed things would really change around me. I know that a lot had happened; our gatherings had extended to include children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren in the case of Tuvok, but when things were getting bigger, they felt right. They felt normal. The people we'd lost were represented by the family members who came to celebrate with us, by the names that Tom had inscribed every year on a plaque by the door. Every single lost _Voyager_ crewman. It wasn't morbid; it was the actions of friends who want to remember and it felt good. But I still wasn't really aware of what was happening. I still felt detached, in a way. In 2446, all of that changed. I had spent the evening with Seven of Nine, at the house which her Aunt Irene left her, discussing the work that I was involved in and the joys of her retirement. She was 96 years old by then, but still healthy and still active. Still beautiful. She was my best friend and we talked easily. Her adopted daughter and subsequent grandson were familiar with me, even close. Young Jackson called me 'uncle' and, in place of a maternal grandfather, I'd often step in and take him to Parises Squares games at the Academy arena. I was talking to Seven about the latest breakthrough in my research when the chime on the computer in the corner sounded. I don't know how, but I knew straight away that something bad had happened. Seven pressed a button and we were greeted with the ashen face of Tom Paris, his old eyes shining with unshed tears.

"It's Chakotay," he whispered, "He's gone."

I would like to say that I don't really remember the next few days but I cannot – my memory ensures that I remember every look, every word, every tear. And there were many tears. Chakotay was 117 years old when he closed his eyes for a nap and never woke up. He'd been slowing down for a while, as all men of his age do, but he seemed perfectly healthy. Unfortunately, in this modern world, this is all too common a story. People are so healthy that it is old age which kills them, and it strikes without warning and without time to prepare. Nature is very cruel like that.

Kathryn –she'd long insisted that we call her by her name – was, well, it was the only time I saw her lose control. Ever. She stood at the front of his memorial service, an old woman herself, clutching her son's hand on one side and Tuvok's on the other. She was holding Sammy's hand so hard that he had to disentangle himself in order to read the citation that he had written for his father. Sammy wasn't young himself, but he looked so vulnerable when he was talking about his father. He wept openly but controlled himself enough to speak. We all knew that Kathryn wasn't thinking straight – we could all hear her crying for the duration, and then she turned to Tuvok. Tuvok was old by then, 182 years old and grey haired, and infinitely more experienced in human ways; when Kathryn, his best friend turned to him on the day of her deepest love's funeral, Tuvok reached out of his own accord and embraced her, tightly, and let her cry on his chest. It was the only momentary light on that horrible, terrible day. Chakotay was the first of the _Voyager_ senior staff to die and it was a wakeup call for everyone, I think. Chakotay had come so far, become so much more than the angry, infinitely sad man that I first met so many years before, and his gentle nature and fierce friendship was something that we had all come to rely on. I consoled myself with the knowledge that he had died happy, had eventually spent more time in his life happy than sad, and that he had met all the people he cared so much for in his afterlife. He'd told me, not many months before he left us, that he was looking forwards to spending much time with his father and grandfather. I think it is because of him, because of his certainty of what was waiting for him afterwards, that I even entertain the possibility that there is something that exists after this life. Even after Neelix's apparent discovery that there was no Great Forest, Chakotay still believed. More fervently than ever, I think.

Many months after his death, on what would have been his birthday, the senior staff gathered at the home he and Kathryn shared for so many years. We had a meal and talked. We were just at the point when Kathryn, and indeed many of the others – myself included – felt that we could talk about our dear friend. We shared stories, memories, and we laughed. Tom regaled us with a full list of the shuttles that seemed to be lost under Chakotay's command – his memory was impeccable, and he even told us exactly what planet they had been destroyed on. It was good to laugh, and even though Tuvok and Harry kept checking on Kathryn from the corners of their eyes, she was laughing too. I felt that I could share the confidante that Chakotay had placed in me when he told me about seeing his father, and they were grateful. They even discussed their own beliefs, but it wasn't grim; rather it was a comfort to many of them. Even Harry Kim was into his nineties at this point, and they'd all had enough of a shock to incite them into discussion. I remained silent during this debate – I was no longer as sceptic as I used to be regarding such beliefs but I also had nothing to contribute. Seven, always alert, noticed my silence and, when I escorted her home late that night, she invited me in.

"Why did you not take part in the debate? You are always keen to share your opinions."

Her eyes were shining with laughter but I refused to rise to the bait, "I have no belief in an afterlife and even if I did, it would do me no favours. If I ever went offline, I know that there would be nothing."

She nodded. Even after years on earth, she had never become sentimental and for that I was grateful.

"I see. But you seemed to be saying that Chakotay's beliefs were not ridiculous to you."

"And it's true. He believed it so much that I couldn't say otherwise. And I was thinking anyway, who am I to say either way what happens when you die? Just because there is nothing for me doesn't mean that there is nothing for you."

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than exist in your philosophy."

"Shakespeare?" I raised an eyebrow.

"Indeed. Jackson is studying it for school and I thought it prudent to be able to assist him. I rather liked that statement. It is very – human. The Borg did not believe in the existence of anything that could not be touched or proven."

"You never fail to surprise me, Seven."

"Thank you. I will consider it a disaster the day that occurs."

That day never did occur, because a mere four years later, when she reached the age of one hundred, Seven died. She had been ill for a while, at least a year, and despite the attempts made to diagnose and treat her, no obvious cause was found and so no treatment developed. I have a horrible feeling that something was happening within the remaining Borg technology, buried deep inside her where we couldn't really get to it. We'll never know, because Seven asked to be cremated and her ashes scattered in the garden of her home, under the tree where she used to sit and watch the sunrise. It had taken her a long while to be convinced that there was something to be found in the endeavour but we managed to drag her out one day and she agreed that it was a rather lovely experience and repeated it, every morning, on her own. On the memorial stone placed in the little graveyard near her home, she asked for an inscription of the very Shakespeare quote that had so interested her before. It was a last act of defiance I think, one last human thing that she could embrace and show to the world. I have spent a lot of time at that stone, pondering the meaning behind those words and what they could possibly mean for a hologram. I've lived my life as a human, done virtually everything that humans do with themselves, but I am denied that one last thing that would make me truly human; I cannot believe in life after death. I cannot be comforted by the knowledge that somewhere, my friends are waiting for me to join them.

My tale is a melancholy one, that much I know, and I wish I did not have to tell it. It does not get better. It cannot possibly get better. Exactly five years after her husband died, we lost Kathryn. I'm surprised and impressed that she lasted five years, to be frank. Chakotay had been her lifeblood, as she was his, and after his passing life seemed to leak from her. Seven's death was an added blow and it was when I saw her stand at Seven's funeral and say nothing that I knew she was not long for this world. After a grand total of one hundred and twenty years, she had nothing left to give. Do not get the impression that she died unhappy, because I do not believe she did, but I think she knew that there was nothing more she needed to do. She'd touched the right people, soothed the right aches, gathered up the right stray sheep and watched as her actions saved more lives than one human should be able to save. I saw her three days before she died, and I think the correct word to describe her would be 'contented'. Primarily, Kathryn Janeway was a scientist but years of marriage to a deeply spiritual man had opened her mind and, Sammy told me at the funeral, she had a smile on her face when she slipped away.

"I think Dad was waiting for her," he smiled sadly, "Just where she knew he would be."

"Trust Kathryn Janeway to have a schedule for that sort of thing," I laughed, reaching out quickly and pulling a sniffing B'Elanna Torres to my side. She said nothing but wrapped her arms around me as Sammy and I talked some more. We all needed human contact that day and I know that B'Elanna was virtually mourning the loss of a second mother.

Tuvok gave a tribute at the wake that moved us all in a way we didn't think a speech from a Vulcan ever could. He spoke simply of a loyal and giving friend, who accepted him and didn't try to change him as many humans had done before, for which he was 'grateful'. He knew that every single person in the room owed something to that marvellous woman and although he didn't play on our emotions as such, I swear that he was trying to incite an emotional response from us. Looking back, I think that he wanted us to react to his words because he couldn't; it's easy to see just how ridiculous the Vulcan state of mind is when you watch someone who wants to grieve, to feel, so badly, but can't, that he has to make others do it for him. I heard a Betazoid friend of Kathryn's murmur to her companion that the wave of emotion coming from Tuvok was almost enough to knock her over. T'Pel knew – I'd never seen her stick so closely by his side. Kathryn had the ability to do that to people, even people like Tuvok.

It seemed, to coin an old human phrase, a slippery slope from that point onwards. Kathryn had been the heart of _Voyager_, and although we stayed close to one another, it was harder. She'd been an unstoppable force and as more crewmen left us, they all became acutely aware of their own mortality. And me? I became acutely aware that I'd be the last of my friends, the last of my crew, I'd outlive the children and the grandchildren and all those other babies that I held at parties. Decay. It was all decaying. It was twelve years – twelve, although when I think about it now, it seems like it went too quickly – after we lost Kathryn that B'Elanna passed quietly away. She made it to one hundred and twenty two years old, fantastic for a half Klingon, and she got to hold her newly born first great grandchild before. I was treating her – she refused to see any other doctor – and I sat with her talking for a while. She was angry, as she was always was when she was scared or not in control. I tried my best to talk to her, to reassure her that everything would be OK and that Tom would be able to cope because we'd all help him out. I reminded her that it could be worse, that we could have been as unprepared as when Chakotay died, and then Tom wouldn't have been able to manage at all. We talked for a long time, far more than we had done for a long while; I told her that I was scared too, of the day when they would all be gone and I'd be alone. It was selfish I know – she was the one dying after all – but I had to tell someone and I think she appreciated my honesty. It gave her something else to think about.

"It's OK, Doc," she smiled gently. Even after all that time, her smile never changed. It was still beautiful, "Because there will always be people who care about you. You'll never be alone."

"I know," I sighed, "But it won't be the same."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that as close as I could be to Miral and Sammy and all the others, they'll never be you. They'll never be the friends that I've lost."

"You'll have me shedding a tear in a minute, Doc," she said wryly, reaching out a shaking hand and enfolding my own. She gazed at me gently and shook her head, "When that happens, Doc, you do know that there is a choice you can make to end it?"

"I have considered it," I nodded, amused, despite the situation, that the engineer in B'Elanna had never really given up, "But then there's another problem."

"What?"

"It's just that…that I know there will never be anything more for me. That would really be the end, whereas you and Chakotay and Tuvok and everyone else has at least vague belief that something could happen to them after death. For all I know you could all be together and I would just be in cybernetic oblivion."

"That might be true, but you'd have to compare it to the alternative. At least in cybernetic oblivion, you wouldn't be in pain anymore."

"You're right, of course," I said, trying to smile, kissing her hand and standing, "But you're tired and you need to sleep. We can talk some more tomorrow."

She let me arrange her pillows and fuss with her blankets but as I was walking away she grabbed my arm.

"Promise me, Doc, that you would never put up with anything out of any false sense of playing the martyr. We all care about you too much to have you suffer."

"Thank you, B'Elanna," I murmured, a lump in my throat, "Sleep tight."

That was the last conversation we had; the night nurse called her family during that night because she was ailing, and by the time I got to them the next morning, she was gone. I never shared what we had talked about, until recently when I told Miral my last wish, because the opportunity never came up. Tom was devastated, as you can imagine, and Tuvok, who had lost T'Pel just six months before, was in no mood to discuss mortality. Harry and I were trying so hard to support them both that we had no time for ourselves.

From the moment she died, Tom just wasn't the same. He tried hard for his children and his grandchildren but I know that he was just floating. B'Elanna had always been his anchor to a real life, the one who saved him from what we can only guess would have been a very different future. I'd read plenty about the notion of a broken heart but I'd never seen anything that I believed was evidence of such a thing. Until that year anyway, because I watched two of my friends die of broken hearts. Tom, and yes, Tuvok. They did it in very different ways, as you might imagine. Tom just began to waste away; he barely ate, rarely slept and spent more time with Tuvok alone than I'd ever known him to. He wasn't dramatic and he didn't feel sorry for himself; I just genuinely believe that he couldn't live without her and his body went about quietly shutting down. When he smiled, he didn't look like the Tom Paris we had all come to know and love. About seven months after B'Elanna died, Harry tried to convince himself that his best friend was getting better, starting to accept it, but I knew the truth. I couldn't tell him that Tom seemed happier because he was just as aware as me that things were drawing to a close.

Tuvok, by contrast, was almost as composed as normal. He spent a lot of time with Tom, and although I'll never know what they were talking about, I can make a pretty good guess. Tuvok loved his wife just as much as Tom loved his, even if he did treat that love in the same way as all his other feelings. In his own way, he suffered just as much; there was an emptiness about him that could never be filled. Where there had been a light in his eyes that sometimes betrayed what he was feeling, there was only a dullness that told me more than the spark ever had. He was two hundred years old by then, relatively old even for a Vulcan, and he'd had enough. Eight months after B'Elanna we lost first Tom and then, just a week later, Tuvok.

There are no words to describe how peaceful their passings were; Tuvok was at Tom's bedside, with Harry and myself – the last of the senior staff – and we all noticed a calmness about Tom much like the one that young Sammy had described as being about his mother. If there was something happening, B'Elanna was certainly there for him; he smiled, just once, just like he always used to. I'm glad that's how I can remember him. He deserved nothing less. And then Tuvok, a short week later. His death was as full of dignity as his life was. His eyes looked past us and his children as he slipped away, to someone who wasn't in the room with us. We'll never know of course if T'Pel was there for him but he certainly at least believed she was and I guess that's all that mattered.

And so there were two. The original _Voyager_ crew members were few and far between; just twenty of us left, including Vorik, Gerron, Dempsey, Harry and myself. Vorik was the oldest but Harry was the only senior staff member besides me and things fell to him to maintain the _Voyager_ reunions. Like all good elders of a group, he delegated to the youngsters; Sammy took over as best he could, with help from the enormously abundant collection of offspring that the crew had produced over the years. Harry took up a position as a figurehead, and although the reunions petered out to once every two years and fewer people attended, they were still a great occasion. We all felt that we owed it to the captain and all of our friends to keep the reunions going for as long as there was an original _Voyager_ crewmember alive. I didn't point out that I could be alive indefinitely. It would have complicated things too much.

Ten years after Tom and Tuvok, Harry died. Of course he did; he had to at some point and any amount of denial on my part wouldn't stop him. As the last senior staff member, I was asked to read at his memorial. I couldn't do it. I broke down and had to be led away. I couldn't face the truth, couldn't face the reality that all of my friends, my real friends, had gone. I cared deeply for Miral and Naomi and the others, but they weren't my contemporaries. They weren't the people I had, essentially, grown up with. I started my life on _Voyager _and so the people I met there were my friends for my whole life.

And they were gone.

The current year is 2500. Three weeks ago, Vorik died. He was the last _Voyager_ crewmember apart from me. That is why I have chosen to ask Miral for her help now. It's my time. Three years ago we buried Naomi Wildman. No doctor should ever have to bury someone that he delivered and I could have asked for this then but I thought back to the last conversation I had with B'Elanna. She'd told me to never play the martyr, to never suffer for them, but I felt that I owed it to Vorik to wait for him. I imagined that the only thing worse than being the only one left would be to leave him when I could wait. I'd decided, rather morbidly, that I would take B'Elanna's advice and participate in my own version of an honourable death, but if I was the last one to do it, then _Voyager_ would have a wonderful sense of completion. I was activated right at the beginning of our journey and I should be turned off for the last time right at the end. It's poetry. And it's the one thing I can take for myself in doing this.

Miral just got in touch to tell me that everything is arranged for next week. It's going to be a quiet affair – I will be joined by some of the children and grandchildren to whom I am close, and we will download my program into the mobile emitter. From that moment, I will be completely unaware of anything. There will be nothing. It will be as though I have died. To make sure that no one is ever able to activate my program, they're going to burn the emitter until it is unsalvageable. All of the copies that were made of my program have been deleted from the Starfleet databases, so there is literally just me. It's just a matter of time now.

Miral told me that she hopes I have finished the manuscript. I think, reading back, that I have done my feelings justice. It's hard to justify what I am doing, I know, but there is really no way that I think I can continue on my own. My friends moulded me, made me who I am, and I am nothing without them to guide me. This is the right thing to do. B'Elanna was right – I won't be in pain anymore. I'm looking forwards to it. I'm ready to go. I've made my peace with myself – I have no regrets, other than knowing that if there is a party in the afterlife, I'm missing out. But then I know that they'll have a drink for me, and that's what I have to hang on to. I'm happy to hold on to something like that.

And anyway, who am I to say for absolute certain what will happen?

After all, there are more things in heaven and earth than exist in my philosophy.

And I might just be lucky.


End file.
